define GM
Treasure Tables has a great posting about how various systems define the role of a GM. As my understanding of the GMs role has evolved over the years (especially in the last one) so too has the industry's. The games we were playing in high school are not the same ones we are playing now.
I'm not just talking about mood or content, but objectives. My favorite definition was from Sorceror:The hope is that playing Sorcerer should generate a good story, specifically one that you and the players are proud of. If you, the GM, don’t have a dramatic narrative goal, why play?
What a great question and yet so many GMs I've spoken with don't even really understand what a narrative goal is. They still think a narrative goal is a "plot point" or some bit of in game drama. While it can be composed of these things, it's not the entirety. Just like batting, pitching, and catching aren't the entirety of baseball.
posted by geekmojo @ 11:03 AM
4 Comments:
By "narrative goal", does the author mean "the point of the whole exercise"? I often run whole campaigns with no particular end point. WW3 for example, the journey is the destination. It used to be about a group of normal people in a world gone mad. The PC's left "normal" back by the roadside, and now its more of a "special ops story", with political intrigues, action, and some horror elements. Still a good story, but I usually plot my stuff out so that I and my players will come to a point beyond which I cannot see - this is be design. Past that singularity, I don't know what will happen.
The author is contrasting play style where the goals of the game are limited to "kill the dragon" or "explore the sunken temple" with play style that is "resolve shameful past" or "understand the nature of justice". Where the goals aren't resolved in single dice rolls. This isn't to say that this type of play doesn't have it's merits. In fact, I really like it most of the time.
Ultimately you (Andrew) do have a narriative goal in mind. You wouldn't spend time on world, NPC, and realtional design otherwise. Even if it's just a name and a sentence description, you have strong ideas about who this NPC is and what lies in store for them. You make an NPC and can visualize how they would interact to various bits of player input. You have a goal for that NPC that is bigger than a simple roll and chart check. You may even have a really good idea what is going to happen to this NPC before the players even show up on the scene. Again, nothing wrong with this. I sometimes enjoy world building just as much as actual game play.
So narrative goal isn't simply about story goal. It's about what you are bringing to the table for your players and what role they will play in what you have in mind.
It's one of the things that are changing in the world of table top gaming. It's the simple question of how much control do your players have over the story being told. How would you respond if one of your players said, "I don't really think the NPC you just described wants what you've lain out, I think they want to give me a big bowl of candy and a kiss on the forehead". How do you take their wishes into consideration? Typically, in illusionist gm'ing we say "that's not how we play here" and inform them of the scope of their powers as a player. But what if the system you were using actually let you navigate player desire and empowered them to co-story your NPCs and plot developments?
It's not for eveybody, but once you've gotten a taste for it I think you'll find it nearly impossible to turn back.
I'm not sure what my style would be called exactly, but I do allow my players some input on the direction of the campaign. I maintian a pretty tight hold on events within an individual session, but above that I do a lot of consultation. We usually hold discussions regarding their specific interests for long-term development, or I might say "I have three courses I could take", then lay out the pros and cons of each. After a discussion, I get a sense of group consensus on that, and usually follow it. That's served our group well.
It's a pretty conservative approach, all-in-all, but has produced reliably good gaming.
Exactly. I don't think anybody who has been gaming as long as we have still play "kill the monster, find the treasure" as the standard fare. We've moved towards new types of play to accomodate our player's evolved desires and our own desire to involve our players in the story's construction and outcomes.
Frankly the most difficult part is getting the players to understand that it's ok to come up with more detail for their story and environment.
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